Erika

“Shame about being hurt often has its origin in childhood. And it is then that many of us first learn that it is a virtue to be silent about pain. … As more people have found the courage to break through shame and speak about woundedness in their lives, we are now subjected to a mean-spirited cultural response, where all talk of woundedness is mocked. The belittling of anyone’s attempt to make a context within which they were wounded, were made a victim, is a form of shaming.”
― bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions

“Her body is a city. Her heart is a large shady square, her fingers pedestrians, her hair the light of streetlamps, her knees two rows of buildings. She tries to give people footpaths. She tries to open up her cheeks and her towers. She didn’t know streets hurt so much, not that there were so many streets in her to begin with. She wants to take her body on a stroll, out of her body, but she doesn’t know where the key is.”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, The End of Days

“And as I surveyed the clutter of his study I was pleased to see that he was a man after my own heart. All of his money appeared to have been spent on either books or shelves to hold them.”
― Ross King, Ex-Libris